Da patologização do uso à incitação ao consumo: o phármakon na dose certa - Um estudo sobre o dispositivo das drogas numa instituição especializada no tratamento do abuso delas

Abstract

This study s object is the drug device, based on drugs sharing built in the moral, medical and legal fields; which were ordered, on one side or the other of this division, according to the values of good and evil, of health or disease and, ultimately, life and death. The objective of this research is to investigate how this device in its double operation of pathologization of (i)licit drug use and incitement to consumption of psychopharmacological drugs, presents itself in a particular institution specialized in drug abuse treatment. The relevance of this research to the field of studies on drugs lies basically in the lack of studies that address the issue of drug jointly ((i)legal drugs and medical drugs) and that fits in the psychiatric drugs in the registry of drugs itself. The research was performed through the analysis of institutional documents of the Centre where the study was conducted and of semi-structured interviews with professionals of the institution s technical Clinical Core staff and with some patients of the Centre. With this we sought to: investigate the clinical premises of the Centre; outline what the professionals understanding of drug addiction; identify the criteria adopted by them to refer patients to the psychiatry service of the institution; and identify the criteria used by them to consider the possibility of patients "discharge"; map what the interviewed patients understand by addiction and what elements they use to reach that understanding; investigate the relation between the interviewed patients and the psychopharmacological drugs prescribed by psychiatrists of the institution. The research s execution showed an extensive process of psychiatrization at the Center, its crossing by the biopolitical regime of power and performance of risk management operations by most of its professional. Such variables gathered sets a framework of wide pathologization mainly of drug use and consequent and wide medicalization, which can be translated as an legitimized incitement psychopharmacological drugs use.